IAN MACNAUGHTON, FLYING CIRCUS HELMSMAN, DIES "Ian McNaughton - Former actor who turned
to directing and guided Monty Python's Flying Circus and Rising Damp
to succes"
published in The
Times on Thursday, January 2, 2003
Special thanks to David Morgan
Saturday, 11 January 2003

Ian MacNaughton strikes a silly
posePhoto Credit: BBC

Far from being an overnight success when it arrived on the scene in
1969, Monty Pythons Flying Circus struggled initially against
unfavourable late-night scheduling and some unconvinced BBC executives,
but the indubitable talent of Palin, Cleese, Jones, Idle, Chapman and
Gilliam ensured that the programme, which introduced us to such classic
moments as the Ministry of Silly Walks, a dead Norwegian blue parrot
and the Spanish Inquisition, is now regarded as a British institution.

Any programme in its infancy, however, needs a strong director to harness
individual talents, establish a momentum and guide it towards success,
and in the shape of experienced actor-turned-director Ian MacNaughton,
the Monty Python team had such an individual. Having just worked with
Spike Milligan on the first Q series, Q5, MacNaughtons
willingness as a director to experiment was paramount, as far as Michael
Palin was concerned. He has fond memories of him: In the early
shows none of us were certain what shape or form Python was going
to take, we were learning as we went along, so it needed a special kind
of director to control that: you needed indulgence, but also somebody
who, at the end of the week, would say: Right, thats it,
this is the show, now we have to put it on tape. And Ian did that.
He appreciated the spirit of Python: the subversiveness and a touch
of anarchy struck a chord with him, and being a bit of a wild Scotsman,
he loved the fact that we were trying something new.

He appreciated the spirit of
Python: the subversiveness and a touch of anarchy struck
a chord with him, and being a bit of a wild Scotsman,
he loved the fact that we were trying something new.

Michael Palin on
Ian MacNaughton

Ian MacNaughton was born in Glasgow in 1925 and attended Strathallan
School in Perth. After studying medicine at university for nine months,
he abandoned plans of becoming a doctor and joined the Royal Marines
in 1942, although his preference had been the Fleet Air Arm. He was
placed in an officers training squad at Deal, Kent, where he was
offered a chance to act with the Globe Players, the marines amateur
dramatics group.

After demob in 1946, he spent a year in his fathers firm, MacNaughton
and Watson, a butchers outfitters in Glasgow, but quickly realised
it was not the life for him. Spotting a newspaper advertisement inviting
applications for a year-long pre-Royal Academy of Dramatic Art course
in London, MacNaughton tried his luck, with the full support of his
family, and was accepted, although he did not subsequently enter the
academy itself.

On completion of the course, in 1950, he headed north and joined the
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, and spent the next eleven years acting
on stage and screen. His film credits, beginning from the early Fifties,
included playing the First Constable in Laxdale Hall, concerning
politicians visiting a tiny Hebridean island whose residents refused
to pay road tax. Usually cast as a Scotsman, he was also seen as Callum
MacGregor in Rob Roy and Haggis in Hammers X the Unknown,
where a mysterious force feeds on radiation from a research station
situated on a bleak Scottish moor.

While appearing in a BBC drama series, Silent Evidence, he read
an article in The Times that led to another change in career
direction, this time behind the camera. With BBC2s imminent arrival
meaning the Corporation needed more directors, MacNaughton applied and
was recruited, although he continued to act for a while. When he finally
found it difficult juggling two jobs, he opted for directing, and worked
on an episode of Z Cars, as well as Doctor Finlay, The
Troubleshooters, The Revenue Men and This Man Craig.

By the time he directed the pilot episode of Rising Damp for
Yorkshire Television in 1974, starring Leonard Rossiter, with whom he
later worked in the short film, Le Pétomane, MacNaughton
was a freelance director. Although unavailable to direct the first series
of Eric Chappells sitcom, he received his fair share of plaudits
when the pilot was transmitted. One journalist felt MacNaughton had
directed the episode with  confident attack , while another
remarked: Without Ian MacNaughtons direction, walking the
tightrope between comedy and farce and hardly faltering, Leonard Rossiters
performance might have stood alone, instead of being carefully blended
into the four-handed teamwork.

Undoubtedly, MacNaughton reached the zenith of his career when he directed
several seasons of Spike Milligans Q series and 45 instalments
(four with John Howard Davies) of Monty Pythons Flying Circus.

During the 1970s MacNaughton moved to Munich, where he worked in television
 directing Follow Me!, a successful English-language series
for Bavarian television  and branched out into the world of opera
and musicals. Working in venues around the world, including Israel,
Yugoslavia, Norway and Austria, he directed, among others, the Australian
composer George Dreyfuss comedy, The Marx Sisters, in 1996,
and Gerhard Baumanns Nyx, a year later. At a theatre near
Innsbrück, Austria, he directed numerous plays; a project last
year was the translation of Ayckbourns Seasons Greetings.
While returning from the theatre after enjoying the productions
first night, MacNaughton was involved in a car accident which led to
his final illness.

He is survived by his wife, Ike, whom he married in 1995, his first
wife, Rita (they divorced in 1958), and a son and daughter from his
first marriage.

Ian MacNaughton, actor and television director, was born in Glasgow,
on December 30, 1925. He died in Munich, Germany, on December 10,
2002, aged 76.